On its face, the Copyright Act provides that copyright owners actually have two separate sets of rights. Section 106 of the Act gives copyright owners the exclusive rights “to do” and “to authorize” certain listed activities with their copyrighted works, including creating reproductions, making adaptations, distributing copies to the public, publicly performing them, and publicly displaying them. 117 U.S.C.A. § 106 (West 2012) (“the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: (1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords; (2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work; (3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending; (4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly; (5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and (6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.”). It’s clear enough what it means “to do” any of those listed activities, but what does it mean “to authorize” them? Moreover, does merely authorizing someone else to infringe lead to liability even if that party doesn’t actually infringe?

Section 501 of the Act provides that “[a]nyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner” is an infringer. 217 U.S.C.A. § 501 (West 2012). It matters not whether they violated the exclusive right “to do” or “to authorize” the listed activity. Either way it’s infringement and they’re an infringer, subject to the full range of remedies under the Act. Nonetheless, as the Supreme Court has noted, distinguishing between different types of infringement is not always easy since “the lines between direct infringement, contributory infringement, and vicarious liability are not clearly drawn.” 3Sony Corp. of Am. v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, 435, n.17 (1984) (internal quotations omitted).

Under the 1909 Copyright Act, courts “came to mixed conclusions about how much involvement in infringing was necessary to subject a defendant to liability for an infringement.” 4Peter Starr Prod. Co. v. Twin Cont’l Films, Inc., 783 F.2d 1440, 1443 (9th Cir. 1986). The doctrinal disarray was not helped by the fact that the previous Act “did not specifically state that the copyright holder had the exclusive right to authorize use” of the copyrighted work. 5Id. (emphasis in original). But that all changed with the addition of the right “to authorize” in the 1976 Copyright Act, which “was intended to remove the confusion surrounding contributory and vicarious infringement.” 6Id.

But can merely authorizing a listed activity itself be infringement without more? In other words, can one who authorizes an infringement be liable even if that authorized infringement never occurs? That depends on whether the exclusive right “to authorize” is seen as an independent right that stands on its own. The relevant House Report has surprisingly little to say about the newly-minted right “to authorize,” though it does suggest that the right doesn’t stand alone:

The exclusive rights accorded to a copyright owner under section 106 are ‘to do and to authorize‘ any of the activities specified in the five numbered clauses. Use of the phrase ‘to authorize’ is intended to avoid any questions as to the liability of contributory infringers. For example, a person who lawfully acquires an authorized copy of a motion picture would be an infringer if he or she engages in the business of renting it to others for purposes of unauthorized public performance. 7H.R. REP. 94-1476, 61.

The reason it matters is because direct infringers are always liable to the copyright owner, while indirect infringers are only liable if the authorized infringement actually occurs. 8See, e.g., 1 Goldstein, Copyright: Principles, Law and Practice § 6.1, at 705 (1989) (“It is definitional that, for a defendant to be held contributorily . . . liable, a direct infringement must have occurred.”). Thus, if the exclusive right “to authorize” is in fact merely a codification of existing secondary liability doctrines, then one who authorizes an infringement has no liability unless the party authorized actually infringes. On the other hand, if the exclusive right “to authorize” stands alone, then mere authorization of an infringement is itself infringement—even if the party authorized doesn’t actually infringe.

In his influential copyright treatise, Nimmer posits that a “far more perplexing question is whether direct infringement must even exist in order for third-party liability to arise.” 93-12 Nimmer on Copyright § 12.04[D][1]. He thinks that reading the Act to create liability for mere authorization without actual infringement is “overly facile,” and that “to authorize” should be seen as “simply a convenient peg on which Congress chose to hang the antecedent jurisprudence of third-party liability.” 10Id. He concludes that “the rule should generally prevail that third party liability, as its name implies, may exist only when direct liability, i.e., infringement, is present.” 11Id.

A few district courts have disagreed with Nimmer and found that the right “to authorize” stands alone. For example, one district court stated that “Congress created a new form of ‘direct’ infringement” when the Act was amended to add the right “to authorize.” 12ITSI T.V. Productions, Inc. v. California Auth. of Racing Fairs, 785 F.Supp. 854, 860 (E.D. Cal. 1992). Another district court stated that “tying the authorization right solely to a claim of justiciable contributory infringement appears contrary both to well-reasoned precedent, statutory text, and legislative history.” 13Curb v. MCA Records, Inc., 898 F. Supp. 586, 594 (M.D. Tenn. 1995). That court held that merely authorizing infringing acts could itself constitute direct infringement.

A different district court followed suit and stated that Section 106 should be read literally to create an independent, exclusive right “to authorize” use of a copyrighted work. 14Expediters Int’l of Washington, Inc. v. Direct Line Cargo Mgmt. Services, Inc., 995 F. Supp. 468, 476 (D.N.J. 1998). That court held that “mere authorization . . . constitutes direct infringement and is actionable under United States Copyright Law.” 15Id. at 477. And in yet another district court, it was held that infringement commences at the moment that authorization occurs, because “the right ‘to authorize’ infringing acts” was itself “a right newly recognized by Congress.” 16Thomas v. Pansy Ellen Products, Inc., 672 F. Supp. 237, 241 (W.D.N.C. 1987). But these four district courts represent the minority view, and no appellate court that I could find has ever agreed.

In fact, the appellate courts that have addressed the issue have instead agreed with Nimmer, as have the district courts that have cited them. In a leading case, the Ninth Circuit stated that “the addition of the words ‘to authorize’ in the 1976 Act appears best understood as merely clarifying that the Act contemplates liability for contributory infringement . . . .” 17Subafilms, Ltd. v. MGM-Pathe Communications Co., 24 F.3d 1088, 1093 (9th Cir. 1994). The court of appeals quoted Nimmer for the proposition that Congress was merely codifying the preexisting “jurisprudence of third party liability.” 18Id. (internal quotations and brackets omitted). Accordingly, the appellate court found that the authorization right is only implicated in cases of contributory infringement, i.e., where there is also direct infringement.

The First Circuit took a similar tack while addressing the issue of whether authorization is infringement “where there is no adequate proof that the third party ever undertook an infringing act.” 19Venegas-Hernandez v. ACEMLA, 424 F.3d 50, 57 (1st Cir. 2005). The court of appeals noted that “most (perhaps all) courts that have considered the question have taken the view that a listed infringing act (beyond authorization) is required for a claim.” 20Id. at 57. While acknowledging that “the better bare-language reading would allow” a claim for mere authorization, the appellate court nonetheless held that there must be proof “of an infringing act after the authorization.” 21Id. at 59.

The district court in the famous Jammie Thomas-Rasset case considered whether merely “making available” song files in a peer-to-peer share folder violated plaintiffs’ exclusive right “to authorize” distributions. (This was in addition to its consideration of whether Thomas-Rasset violated plaintiffs’ exclusive right “to do” distributions, as I wrote about previously.) After surveying the statutory text, case law, and legislative history, the district court concluded that “the authorization clause merely provides a statutory foundation for secondary liability, not a means of expanding the scope of direct infringement liability.” 22Capitol Records, Inc. v. Thomas, 579 F.Supp.2d 1210, 1221 (D. Minn. 2008). Moreover, said the district court, “the authorization right . . . only applies if there is an actual dissemination.” 23Id. at 1223.

Bringing us back to the Copyright Act, it’s safe to say that while the plain wording of Section 106 appears to create an independent, exclusive right “to authorize” the listed activities, the majority view is that the right “to authorize” doesn’t stand alone and that one who authorizes an infringement is only liable if the authorized infringement actually takes place.

17 U.S.C.A. § 106 (West 2012) (“the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: (1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords; (2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work; (3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending; (4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly; (5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and (6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.”).

See, e.g., 1 Goldstein, Copyright: Principles, Law and Practice § 6.1, at 705 (1989) (“It is definitional that, for a defendant to be held contributorily . . . liable, a direct infringement must have occurred.”).

Devlin is a husband, father, and law geek (JD & LLM). He is currently an SJD candidate at Tulane Law in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he is writing his dissertation on copyright law. He is also a Mark Twain Copyright Fellow at the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property at George Mason Law in Arlington, Virginia.

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Copyhype provides news and info on current developments relating to copyright law, the media industries, and the digital economy. It cuts through the hype to bring reasoned discussion aimed at both legal and nonlegal audiences.

Terry Hart is currently VP Legal Policy and Copyright Counsel at the Copyright Alliance. Any opinions expressed on this site remain his own and not necessarily those of his present or any past employers.